She turned and walked down-stairs, informing Hitch Diamond in tragic tones that Mrs. Gaitskill had “done gone cripple under de hat.”
Peering through the branches of a large pecan-tree which stood beside the window, Diada could see the purple haze which hung above the Little Moccasin Swamp. Charmed by this vision she settled back in her chair and remained perfectly quiet.
Mrs. Gaitskill sealed all her envelopes; then finding that she lacked a sufficient number of stamps walked down-stairs to the library. The instant she left the room Diada stepped out on the window-sill, poised for a moment, and leaped with the agility of a monkey from the window to a heavy branch of the pecan-tree. Slipping quickly to the ground she started for the Little Moccasin Swamp.
Avoiding the streets of Tickfall by a detour, she struck into a long, swinging, tireless trot, as rapid as the gallop of a mustang, and in twenty minutes swung off into the bridle-path which led to the Gaitskill hog-camp. Her long skirts hindered her by catching upon the briers and underbrush. She stopped, rolled her skirts up above the knees, knotted them into place by a deft twist, then trotted on.
Standing under the shadow of a live-oak-tree on the Little Moccasin ridge, holding a double-barreled, muzzle-loading shotgun, was a diminutive darky named Little Bit. His eager eyes were searching the branches of a hickory tree for an elusive gray squirrel. Little Bit was afraid of snakes, varmints, his own shadow, and “ha’nts.”
“Dis shore is a lonesome place,” he chattered to himself. “I’s got snake-dust in my shoes, an’ a buckeye in my pocket, an’ a buzzard’s feather in my hat—but I ain’t feel like nothin’ cain’t happen——”
Twenty yards away Diada stood in the shadow of another tree watching him. She was very much interested in the little negro, who had his back to her. With absolutely noiseless tread she approached him—her intentions most friendly and peaceable. When she was ten feet away Little Bit turned around and saw her.
The features of Little Bit’s face first expanded, then contracted, then resolved into a heterogeneous mass expressive of more conflicting emotions than he had ever before experienced. The gun fell from his hands and dropped with the barrel resting across his toes. Even in his agony of fright he was conscious of Diada’s shortened skirt, and beheld her big, brown knees, knotted and gnarled like the trunk of a black gum-tree. With a trembling hand he reached upward for his hat—a sure sign he was getting ready to go away from there at his best speed.
Like a flash he wheeled and raced bareheaded down the ridge, slapping his hat against his thigh at every step like a jockey lashing his mount. In a moment he merged himself like a brown, fleeting shadow among the shadows of the overarching trees. Diada picked up the gun, holding it like a club, and striking her tireless trot, followed in his tracks.
Old Isaiah, the venerable negro superintendent of the Gaitskill hog-camp, sat upon the porch of the cabin sunning his rheumatic legs when Little Bit came racing across the clearing at breakneck speed.